No Sympathy here. Whoever buys into a scheme where you get offered an overpaid, underworked job and expects it to last forever deserves the "Experience" they get.
I'll agree with you on the "video-internet". Mr. Metcalf seems to have confused the computer with consumer electronics. Sure, the former can do the latter, but that's not it's strong suit. Computational efficiency for doing work just happens to work well with compressed digital video. Coincidence, not purpose.
I don't see why it would fail. Heck, I'd add that you must either manufacture your device in commerically suffcient quantites within 1 year of granting of the patent, or be subject to mandatory licensing, at a fixed rate. Now, that seems harsh, but the purpose of patents is not profit. Profit is just an incentive to create, and the intent of patents is to encourage creation.
If you've invented the first bread-slicing machine, keep it secret until you've got VCs on board. I hate to say it, but the days of the super-inventor working in his garden shed are over. Tell your grandpa to go get a lawyer and work up an NDA along with the drawings if you want to pitch your idea to MegaCorp.
Though I agree that the number, 6, has probably been pulled from OPs nether regions, population is not necessarily the driving factor - density is. Good dense residential and commercial districts is what you need. Usually that either means constrained land, or very good planning. Since the latter almost never happens, land constraint is usually required. In most of the US, there's just so freakin' much of it, it's hard to get people to squish together voluntarily. Add a bit of cash, and they all go out and build McMansions or Starter Castles on "estate" lots in the 'burbs. What's an hour and a half on the freeway if you're comfy in your new Benz?
Now, I happen live in a town of 30,000, which has excellent bus service (you can get anywhere, practically, and stops are very frequent). The catch? Its a college town, and for nine months of the year, the population swells to about 50,000. Of that 50,000, fully half are required to pay a fee which keeps the busses running. They get to ride for free, of course. Also, the housing is dense (apartments/condos students account for 60-65% of housing units), and there are just a couple of business centers, also relatively dense. Just to prove I'm a filthy American, I drive everywhere (except when I walk or bike to work or the library, when the weather is nice). What do I do with all the minutes I saved (not) waiting for the bus? I post on/., of course!
I think the problem is that some users have a real inflated sense of self importance and entitlement.
The only issue I have is when either
(A) management doesn't realize the load they've put on sysadmins, and I have to do crosswords until the SA can get my stuff working because they're understaffed
(B) I'm working on time-critical projects that require me to be at the office after hours, while the SA who needs to get me running is out playing with his kids
(C) SysAdmins who have a real inflated sense of self importance and entitlement.
As an engineer trying to get things done, A and B are frustrating, but C is just downright infuriating. But you'd better not piss of the guy with root, or you'll never get your job done - and it won't be his fault.
(PS: Now I run my own company, and am root. Now that I've been root for a couple of years, I really, really want to hire someone to be root for me. It's just too much fucking work, and goddamnit I've got to be doing more billable hours if I want to eat!;-)
You're just not rich enough, and the crime you mentioned isn't white collar. Corporations pull this shit all the time. It doesn't apply to individuals, unless, of course, the infraction is small, and you're famous, in which case you're likely to get off easy, but that's something else entirely.
My beef wouldn't be that GIMP isn't a perfectly valid and desicriptive acronym, but that the word of the same spelling has a negative connotation right out of the box. gimp: disability of walking due to crippling of the legs or feet. Yeah, that makes me want to try that out. You don't see Honda ads touting the advantages of their light-weight economy car, code named the Singularly Perfect Long-range Automobile Type. Of course not! Although all the geeks in the engineering department would love it, that would be marketing suicide.
Part of the probelm is just that - marketing. These otherwise non-associative names are well driven into the consumer psyche. Linux, if it wan't to be the "next desktop" has to do it without the multi-billion dollar marketing machine that keeps the big software guys in the green. I'm not saying that windows doesn't have stupid names, but most of those companies have the cash to make them household names.
(BTW - it took me until just this last version to get the whole Nero thing. I was watching the install screen and the flaming coluseum icon...and the long "o" vowel in ROM hit me. I just shook my head that I had never "gotten" it before.)
Yes, but what they don't say is that reporting will likely be for the current year, so if you grossed $1M last year, and you hit "critical mass" you may be subject to reporting/paying for the current year, but not know it until you cross then $5M in December.
Don't think this can happen? That's EXACTLY the way reporting for payroll taxes to the federal government. If you have less than $2500 in taxes due in a quarter, you may pay quarterly. Otherwise, you must pay monthly. Here's the catch: if, at the end of the quarter (or, just in the second month) you find that you've gone over the $2500 limit, you are retroactively charged penalty and interest for not filing monthly even if you were on track to owe less than $2500 that quarter. Not really very business friendly.
Anyway, it's worth noting that $5M in sales in extremely competitive industries will often only make $50,000 to $100,000 in profit in a year (1-2%). For a "small fee" of $500/quarter for tax updates, you've just cut into profits by 4%. All because states are too lazy to police their own laws.
This is exactly why I favor a gross receipts tax. You get money, you pay a 3% tax (call it a receipt fee, if you like) on it. Normally I like to say "no exceptions", but I make one, single exemption: Each person, as defined by the posession of a social security number, who receives income, goods, or services, may deduct up 2087 x Federal Minimum Wage.
Get a subsidy? Pay 3%. Sell Stock? Pay 3%. Sell your house? Pay 3%. Think of it as a fee for making your transaction possible through military defense, regulation, adjudication of wrongs, etc. At the end of the year, I receive (say) $80,000 from my business, and I get to deduct 2087xmin wage, then pay 3%. OF course, the company I own received $150,000, so it pays 3% on that $150k. No SSN, no deduction. Did I pay twice? Yup. And I should have. If I were a sole proprietor, I would receive the money only once, but I would not get the governmental/legal protections afforded to my by corporate law.
Don't worry, it won't happen. Companies, who buy these laws, won't want their gravy train to end, and the Democrats would never let go of their EIC, a negative tax bracket for the poor.
You'll have to update your software several times a year to keep track of the changing tax rates and codes. You've stuck the software jackpot - a necessary product that requires a subscription service to function properly. Better yet, you can even make the software stop functioning if it doesn't get an update, because you wouldn't want to be liable for submitting false data on taxes, right?
Actully, you'll find that it's normally classified as Use Tax. That's why you're supposed to claim it on your tax forms each year, and pay fo those products purchased out of state. Except it's not policed and most people ignore it. It would cost too much for states to track you down individually - it's much cheaper for them to make businesses bear the cost of enforcement. These are known in the political world as unfunded mandates - good to impose, bad to be imposed on. Nice to see the states "standing up for the little guy". Not.
"Cheap" software is relative. Often, "cheap" is defined as somewhere in the range of 30% to 70% of what it would cost you to do it yourself. I wouldn't be suprised to see a package nationwide to cost a couple thousand dollars per year. Now, that may not seem like much, but if you're running a one-man mail order shop, and you're markups are small (remember - you have to compete on price alone, and you have to include shipping an idividual item in that price), it may be a decent percentage of your annual profits.
Heck, The cost of the employee services for quickbooks is about 20% of my annual employee expenses (I have one 1/4 time assistant). I wouldn't call that exactly cheap. Most businesses are small - much smaller than you realize. A couple grand is a major expense for those companies.
at the pearly gates. St. Peter is at gates, interviewing each person as they get to the front of the queue. Suddenly, a man appears in surgical scrubs walks up to the front of the line, nods to St. Peter, and enters the kingdom of heaven. Outraged, the man at the back of the line chrages up to St. Peter and demands to know why the doctor does not have to stand in line with the rest of the people. St. Peter replies, "Oh, that was God...he just thinks he's a doctor."
Yeah, I know, but I'm not sore about it. A 2c hike - about 5% in what - 3 years? That's a smaller increase than inflation, and there's been no fuel surcharge added in the recent years like all the other carriers. It's still a bargain if you've got small stuff to mail!
Oh, that will be available as an add-on product, as will a separate "control key" pad for the insert/home... gouping, an "arrow key" pad which will be expanded to at least 9 keys (8 directional and a central enter), plus the "legacy user" pad which will give you the Escape and Function keys which you can set above your main key pad. After the success of the add-ons is proven, the "internet enabled" pad, with hot keys for your mail, browser, shopping, search, and gopher, and the "power user" pad which can have 10-12 custom application start up keys.
Eventually they'll sell the whole kit, then finally an "integrated" master keyboard, with all the above functions integrated into one place. It may be a few years down the road, but that's the one I'm going to wait for. It'll be awesome. I promise.
"Jones wrote that he wasn't saying the intelligent design concept shouldn't be studied and discussed, saying its advocates "have bona fide and deeply held beliefs which drive their scholarly endeavors."
But, he wrote, "our conclusion today is that it is unconstitutional to teach ID as an alternative to evolution in a public school science classroom."
So you need not fear that this ruling is a gag order on creationism in the classroom. It is merely a ruling which forbids the required teaching of ID as an viable, alternate scientific theory to evolution because, well, its not scientific. Teachers are still free to dicuss alternate scientific theories, and to footnote pseudo-theories during their lectures.
I feel that this is just fine. If they don't want to teach the real ID, they can just burn in hell for their sins. I, on the other hand, am planning for the day I don my eternal pirate regalila and dring from the beer volcano and see the stripper factory with my own eyes.
Yah, but I'm sure that I'm at most 3 degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon, and may be as close as two, so I can overlook the fictional/nonfictional nature of the movie. Besides, this is/. It's all about piling on.
You've made my point. In the cable arena, its OTA, a single cable provider, or Satellite. (Personally, I have DirecTV). In Broadband, you might have two real choices - maybe three - and they're usually large comglomerate ho don't give a fuck about your service, or dialup. Not exactly an efficient system, in economic terms.
Heck, I don't need a phone. I can still mail a letter to the west coast for $.37 and get the same information.
When I said internet was essential, I was comparing it to the telephone. Even if you still shit in the woods, the rest of us would rather do things with out lives than wait for downloads over dialup. And, yes, I've gotten used to weather.com loading in three or four seconds instead of a minute. Or trying to find information on whatever topic I'm looking for by opening up several google hits at once, and then flipping through the tabs to see which one has the data I want as fast as I can read.
Heck, I could just walk down to the library and get much of the same information, or surf on their machines. No internet required. As long as I've got an hour or two to kill. But I have a family and prefer to spend time with them instead of in front of a computer, or wandering all over town to get some obscure item I need. Yes, my choice is selective. But eliminating smoke signals, the pony express, and dialup from my list of broadband internet providers shouldn't be unreasonable.
That's what I used to think, too, and why I usually built my own with upgradability in mind. That is, until I realized that I could rarely upgrade a single component and get up to speed a year or 18 months after my purchase. Typically, I'd be looking at a new video card, more memory, a faster processor, a bigger HD. Then, I'd find out that to really get the most, I would need to upgrade the MB to support the new (video slot/memory slot/processor type), and I'd end up having to replace everything, because you could only get the new slots as a group.
That's about the time I decided that I didn't have a grand a year to spend upgrading for the new games, and, hell, I wan't very good at them anyway. I ended up finding other ways to waste my time and money.
Man, I don't usually chime in to get the moderators attention, but this is possibly the most salient point made. There really is very little choice here. It's like telling somebody that if they don't like their cable TV service, choose a different cable provider. Oos - there are no others, unless you're willing to move to a different house that's served by a different company. In an era of consolidation by companies with large, varied interests, the "choice" is quickly leaving the table as a possibility. It's going to become opt in or opt out. And opting out is just cutting off your nose if you have any need for those services. The internet has become almost as necessary as a phone to most people, and for good reason.
In a way, I hope it does go to hell in a handbasket. Then maybe something will happen.
Oh, definitely increases, though there's a limit. You've got to make the change occur after the post-it sticky goes bad (so it falls off the monitor, harmlessley to the ground), but before the user gets so annoyed at the failed-sticky that he/she uses Scotch tape to permanantly affix it to the monitor.
You're probably referring to common sense - a trait which is developed more acutely when intellegence is not a driving ability. Yes, there are professors who can't seem to tie their shoes. I know a very smart aerospace engineer with a PhD who put regular dishsoap in a dishwasher. Stupid. The poor boy would go out in public with read sweats and an orange shirt, or wear stripes and plaid together. No concept of fashion, whatsoever. Still, he was very smart, and does amazing work in his field.
Being able to unjumble mixed up words or rotate cubes in your head does make you smart. Just as being able to bench press 500 pounds makes you strong. There are lots of strong people who couldn't run a marathon, though. Smart is just an ability, like any other. It doesn't say anything about social adjustment, practical knowledge, or interpersonal skills. Those are different abilities.
Also, be careful not to mix up academics with smart people - they are not necessarily the same. You must remember that academics offers a very cushy lifestyle for those who do not find the "regular" world of business inviting. They serve a purpose, but don't put them on a pedestal just because of the campus office. That would be as erroneous as assuming that a CxO has a great deal of insight into the operations of their company. No doubt many do, but there are quite a few who have found that social skills can mask professional incompetance.
My point is that I agree with the GP - the tests work well. The measure raw ability, as will a similar set up for testing muscle strength. It does not predict their usefulness in society.
If you are using third world child labor, don't count your time at all, and happen to have all the tools and most of the miscellaneous supplies just lying around ready to be put into the transhcan, I'm guessing you might break even.
Of coursem that's if you don't mind poor color rendition, and have an enormous space for your projector.
Don't be put off by lamp life. 2000 hours? My first PJ lasted more than 4 years on its original 1000 hour lamp (it had about 1700 when I sold the house, and still looked fine). 2000 hours - that's 8 hours a day, five days a week, 50 weeks a year, or 5.5 hours a day, every day, all year. Unless you plan on just leaving the thing on all the time, it should take you a good two years to go through a 2000 hour lamp, and several HT projectors are sporting 4000 hour lamps now. Heck, by then you'll want a new projector.
Officemax recently had a PJ on sale here for $499. 1100 lumens, 4000h lamp, 2000:1 contrast. That's going to be hard to beat with a DIY setup.
Spend a couple of hours searching for a bargain, instead of building your own. You'll probably be happier in the end, and if you're married, you'll definitely be happier with the WAF in the end.
Yeah, that's it. The pirates. All out there downloading illgal music through P2P and not listening to the radio. You know, there should be a law. That's it, a LAW. A law to require the inclusion of AM and FM receiving in every portable audio player. And a special algorithm which prevents the playing of any song from memory that will be broadcast in say, the next 12 hours, or has been broadcast in the previous 12 hours. All tracks will require DRM that catalogs them. No catalog number, no play. If you want to listen to junior's recital, record it on an 8 track. Grandma want's to hear it? Mail her a copy of the tape.
Now, I hear you claim that you "own" your music and you can play it wherever and whenever you want. And I say bullshit. You've licensed that music. What? You own a CD? Don't think that your pooch-pounding, cd-ripping, format-shifting, "oh, it's fair use" means squat to the people who run this country. We're talking about the very survival of people who pay good money to get the right folks elected. Want it different? Fine - just get your own FCC license and run your own station. You can play whatever you want whenever you want, without running afoul of the law. It's a free country - your want it your way, go and pay for it. What's that? You don't have that kind of cash laying around. Well, let me remind you that the laws weren't bought and paid for by the poor.
So there it is - to prop up a business model that is no longer viable, we simply need a couple of laws. That'll fix those damned pirates.
On the contrary, you should pay more for rural roads, as the cost per driven mile is higher due to construction difficulty and the greater impact of environmental degradation over the life of the road. We could even match the driven roads to the most recent per-mile cost estimates for reconstruction and maintenance. Gosh, we could make this so complicated you would never be able to figure out what the most efficient route is, or whether your tax liability was calculated correctly. This should have all the politicians licking their chops (pork chops, that is)!
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No Sympathy here. Whoever buys into a scheme where you get offered an overpaid, underworked job and expects it to last forever deserves the "Experience" they get.
I'll agree with you on the "video-internet". Mr. Metcalf seems to have confused the computer with consumer electronics. Sure, the former can do the latter, but that's not it's strong suit. Computational efficiency for doing work just happens to work well with compressed digital video. Coincidence, not purpose.
I don't see why it would fail. Heck, I'd add that you must either manufacture your device in commerically suffcient quantites within 1 year of granting of the patent, or be subject to mandatory licensing, at a fixed rate. Now, that seems harsh, but the purpose of patents is not profit. Profit is just an incentive to create, and the intent of patents is to encourage creation.
If you've invented the first bread-slicing machine, keep it secret until you've got VCs on board. I hate to say it, but the days of the super-inventor working in his garden shed are over. Tell your grandpa to go get a lawyer and work up an NDA along with the drawings if you want to pitch your idea to MegaCorp.
Though I agree that the number, 6, has probably been pulled from OPs nether regions, population is not necessarily the driving factor - density is. Good dense residential and commercial districts is what you need. Usually that either means constrained land, or very good planning. Since the latter almost never happens, land constraint is usually required. In most of the US, there's just so freakin' much of it, it's hard to get people to squish together voluntarily. Add a bit of cash, and they all go out and build McMansions or Starter Castles on "estate" lots in the 'burbs. What's an hour and a half on the freeway if you're comfy in your new Benz?
/., of course!
Now, I happen live in a town of 30,000, which has excellent bus service (you can get anywhere, practically, and stops are very frequent). The catch? Its a college town, and for nine months of the year, the population swells to about 50,000. Of that 50,000, fully half are required to pay a fee which keeps the busses running. They get to ride for free, of course. Also, the housing is dense (apartments/condos students account for 60-65% of housing units), and there are just a couple of business centers, also relatively dense. Just to prove I'm a filthy American, I drive everywhere (except when I walk or bike to work or the library, when the weather is nice). What do I do with all the minutes I saved (not) waiting for the bus? I post on
I think the problem is that some users have a real inflated sense of self importance and entitlement.
The only issue I have is when either
(A) management doesn't realize the load they've put on sysadmins, and I have to do crosswords until the SA can get my stuff working because they're understaffed
(B) I'm working on time-critical projects that require me to be at the office after hours, while the SA who needs to get me running is out playing with his kids
(C) SysAdmins who have a real inflated sense of self importance and entitlement.
As an engineer trying to get things done, A and B are frustrating, but C is just downright infuriating. But you'd better not piss of the guy with root, or you'll never get your job done - and it won't be his fault.
(PS: Now I run my own company, and am root. Now that I've been root for a couple of years, I really, really want to hire someone to be root for me. It's just too much fucking work, and goddamnit I've got to be doing more billable hours if I want to eat!
You're just not rich enough, and the crime you mentioned isn't white collar. Corporations pull this shit all the time. It doesn't apply to individuals, unless, of course, the infraction is small, and you're famous, in which case you're likely to get off easy, but that's something else entirely.
My beef wouldn't be that GIMP isn't a perfectly valid and desicriptive acronym, but that the word of the same spelling has a negative connotation right out of the box. gimp: disability of walking due to crippling of the legs or feet. Yeah, that makes me want to try that out. You don't see Honda ads touting the advantages of their light-weight economy car, code named the Singularly Perfect Long-range Automobile Type. Of course not! Although all the geeks in the engineering department would love it, that would be marketing suicide.
Part of the probelm is just that - marketing. These otherwise non-associative names are well driven into the consumer psyche. Linux, if it wan't to be the "next desktop" has to do it without the multi-billion dollar marketing machine that keeps the big software guys in the green. I'm not saying that windows doesn't have stupid names, but most of those companies have the cash to make them household names.
(BTW - it took me until just this last version to get the whole Nero thing. I was watching the install screen and the flaming coluseum icon...and the long "o" vowel in ROM hit me. I just shook my head that I had never "gotten" it before.)
Yes, but what they don't say is that reporting will likely be for the current year, so if you grossed $1M last year, and you hit "critical mass" you may be subject to reporting/paying for the current year, but not know it until you cross then $5M in December.
Don't think this can happen? That's EXACTLY the way reporting for payroll taxes to the federal government. If you have less than $2500 in taxes due in a quarter, you may pay quarterly. Otherwise, you must pay monthly. Here's the catch: if, at the end of the quarter (or, just in the second month) you find that you've gone over the $2500 limit, you are retroactively charged penalty and interest for not filing monthly even if you were on track to owe less than $2500 that quarter. Not really very business friendly.
Anyway, it's worth noting that $5M in sales in extremely competitive industries will often only make $50,000 to $100,000 in profit in a year (1-2%). For a "small fee" of $500/quarter for tax updates, you've just cut into profits by 4%. All because states are too lazy to police their own laws.
...the only thing I can think of when I hear the name Guido is Tom Cruise driving a Porsche and being chased by a pimp.
This is exactly why I favor a gross receipts tax. You get money, you pay a 3% tax (call it a receipt fee, if you like) on it. Normally I like to say "no exceptions", but I make one, single exemption: Each person, as defined by the posession of a social security number, who receives income, goods, or services, may deduct up 2087 x Federal Minimum Wage.
Get a subsidy? Pay 3%. Sell Stock? Pay 3%. Sell your house? Pay 3%. Think of it as a fee for making your transaction possible through military defense, regulation, adjudication of wrongs, etc. At the end of the year, I receive (say) $80,000 from my business, and I get to deduct 2087xmin wage, then pay 3%. OF course, the company I own received $150,000, so it pays 3% on that $150k. No SSN, no deduction. Did I pay twice? Yup. And I should have. If I were a sole proprietor, I would receive the money only once, but I would not get the governmental/legal protections afforded to my by corporate law.
Don't worry, it won't happen. Companies, who buy these laws, won't want their gravy train to end, and the Democrats would never let go of their EIC, a negative tax bracket for the poor.
You'll have to update your software several times a year to keep track of the changing tax rates and codes. You've stuck the software jackpot - a necessary product that requires a subscription service to function properly. Better yet, you can even make the software stop functioning if it doesn't get an update, because you wouldn't want to be liable for submitting false data on taxes, right?
Oh, this is going to be good...
Actully, you'll find that it's normally classified as Use Tax. That's why you're supposed to claim it on your tax forms each year, and pay fo those products purchased out of state. Except it's not policed and most people ignore it. It would cost too much for states to track you down individually - it's much cheaper for them to make businesses bear the cost of enforcement. These are known in the political world as unfunded mandates - good to impose, bad to be imposed on. Nice to see the states "standing up for the little guy". Not.
"Cheap" software is relative. Often, "cheap" is defined as somewhere in the range of 30% to 70% of what it would cost you to do it yourself. I wouldn't be suprised to see a package nationwide to cost a couple thousand dollars per year. Now, that may not seem like much, but if you're running a one-man mail order shop, and you're markups are small (remember - you have to compete on price alone, and you have to include shipping an idividual item in that price), it may be a decent percentage of your annual profits.
Heck, The cost of the employee services for quickbooks is about 20% of my annual employee expenses (I have one 1/4 time assistant). I wouldn't call that exactly cheap. Most businesses are small - much smaller than you realize. A couple grand is a major expense for those companies.
at the pearly gates. St. Peter is at gates, interviewing each person as they get to the front of the queue. Suddenly, a man appears in surgical scrubs walks up to the front of the line, nods to St. Peter, and enters the kingdom of heaven. Outraged, the man at the back of the line chrages up to St. Peter and demands to know why the doctor does not have to stand in line with the rest of the people. St. Peter replies, "Oh, that was God...he just thinks he's a doctor."
Yeah, I know, but I'm not sore about it. A 2c hike - about 5% in what - 3 years? That's a smaller increase than inflation, and there's been no fuel surcharge added in the recent years like all the other carriers. It's still a bargain if you've got small stuff to mail!
Oh, that will be available as an add-on product, as will a separate "control key" pad for the insert/home... gouping, an "arrow key" pad which will be expanded to at least 9 keys (8 directional and a central enter), plus the "legacy user" pad which will give you the Escape and Function keys which you can set above your main key pad. After the success of the add-ons is proven, the "internet enabled" pad, with hot keys for your mail, browser, shopping, search, and gopher, and the "power user" pad which can have 10-12 custom application start up keys.
Eventually they'll sell the whole kit, then finally an "integrated" master keyboard, with all the above functions integrated into one place. It may be a few years down the road, but that's the one I'm going to wait for. It'll be awesome. I promise.
and it says:
"Jones wrote that he wasn't saying the intelligent design concept shouldn't be studied and discussed, saying its advocates "have bona fide and deeply held beliefs which drive their scholarly endeavors."
But, he wrote, "our conclusion today is that it is unconstitutional to teach ID as an alternative to evolution in a public school science classroom."
So you need not fear that this ruling is a gag order on creationism in the classroom. It is merely a ruling which forbids the required teaching of ID as an viable, alternate scientific theory to evolution because, well, its not scientific. Teachers are still free to dicuss alternate scientific theories, and to footnote pseudo-theories during their lectures.
I feel that this is just fine. If they don't want to teach the real ID, they can just burn in hell for their sins. I, on the other hand, am planning for the day I don my eternal pirate regalila and dring from the beer volcano and see the stripper factory with my own eyes.
Yah, but I'm sure that I'm at most 3 degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon, and may be as close as two, so I can overlook the fictional/nonfictional nature of the movie. Besides, this is /. It's all about piling on.
So, you're mostly disconnected. Whoopteedoo.
You've made my point. In the cable arena, its OTA, a single cable provider, or Satellite. (Personally, I have DirecTV). In Broadband, you might have two real choices - maybe three - and they're usually large comglomerate ho don't give a fuck about your service, or dialup. Not exactly an efficient system, in economic terms.
Heck, I don't need a phone. I can still mail a letter to the west coast for $.37 and get the same information.
When I said internet was essential, I was comparing it to the telephone. Even if you still shit in the woods, the rest of us would rather do things with out lives than wait for downloads over dialup. And, yes, I've gotten used to weather.com loading in three or four seconds instead of a minute. Or trying to find information on whatever topic I'm looking for by opening up several google hits at once, and then flipping through the tabs to see which one has the data I want as fast as I can read.
Heck, I could just walk down to the library and get much of the same information, or surf on their machines. No internet required. As long as I've got an hour or two to kill. But I have a family and prefer to spend time with them instead of in front of a computer, or wandering all over town to get some obscure item I need. Yes, my choice is selective. But eliminating smoke signals, the pony express, and dialup from my list of broadband internet providers shouldn't be unreasonable.
That's what I used to think, too, and why I usually built my own with upgradability in mind. That is, until I realized that I could rarely upgrade a single component and get up to speed a year or 18 months after my purchase. Typically, I'd be looking at a new video card, more memory, a faster processor, a bigger HD. Then, I'd find out that to really get the most, I would need to upgrade the MB to support the new (video slot/memory slot/processor type), and I'd end up having to replace everything, because you could only get the new slots as a group.
That's about the time I decided that I didn't have a grand a year to spend upgrading for the new games, and, hell, I wan't very good at them anyway. I ended up finding other ways to waste my time and money.
Man, I don't usually chime in to get the moderators attention, but this is possibly the most salient point made. There really is very little choice here. It's like telling somebody that if they don't like their cable TV service, choose a different cable provider. Oos - there are no others, unless you're willing to move to a different house that's served by a different company. In an era of consolidation by companies with large, varied interests, the "choice" is quickly leaving the table as a possibility. It's going to become opt in or opt out. And opting out is just cutting off your nose if you have any need for those services. The internet has become almost as necessary as a phone to most people, and for good reason.
In a way, I hope it does go to hell in a handbasket. Then maybe something will happen.
Oh, definitely increases, though there's a limit. You've got to make the change occur after the post-it sticky goes bad (so it falls off the monitor, harmlessley to the ground), but before the user gets so annoyed at the failed-sticky that he/she uses Scotch tape to permanantly affix it to the monitor.
;-)
It's all about balance
You're probably referring to common sense - a trait which is developed more acutely when intellegence is not a driving ability. Yes, there are professors who can't seem to tie their shoes. I know a very smart aerospace engineer with a PhD who put regular dishsoap in a dishwasher. Stupid. The poor boy would go out in public with read sweats and an orange shirt, or wear stripes and plaid together. No concept of fashion, whatsoever. Still, he was very smart, and does amazing work in his field.
Being able to unjumble mixed up words or rotate cubes in your head does make you smart. Just as being able to bench press 500 pounds makes you strong. There are lots of strong people who couldn't run a marathon, though. Smart is just an ability, like any other. It doesn't say anything about social adjustment, practical knowledge, or interpersonal skills. Those are different abilities.
Also, be careful not to mix up academics with smart people - they are not necessarily the same. You must remember that academics offers a very cushy lifestyle for those who do not find the "regular" world of business inviting. They serve a purpose, but don't put them on a pedestal just because of the campus office. That would be as erroneous as assuming that a CxO has a great deal of insight into the operations of their company. No doubt many do, but there are quite a few who have found that social skills can mask professional incompetance.
My point is that I agree with the GP - the tests work well. The measure raw ability, as will a similar set up for testing muscle strength. It does not predict their usefulness in society.
If you are using third world child labor, don't count your time at all, and happen to have all the tools and most of the miscellaneous supplies just lying around ready to be put into the transhcan, I'm guessing you might break even.
Of coursem that's if you don't mind poor color rendition, and have an enormous space for your projector.
Don't be put off by lamp life. 2000 hours? My first PJ lasted more than 4 years on its original 1000 hour lamp (it had about 1700 when I sold the house, and still looked fine). 2000 hours - that's 8 hours a day, five days a week, 50 weeks a year, or 5.5 hours a day, every day, all year. Unless you plan on just leaving the thing on all the time, it should take you a good two years to go through a 2000 hour lamp, and several HT projectors are sporting 4000 hour lamps now. Heck, by then you'll want a new projector.
Officemax recently had a PJ on sale here for $499. 1100 lumens, 4000h lamp, 2000:1 contrast. That's going to be hard to beat with a DIY setup.
Spend a couple of hours searching for a bargain, instead of building your own. You'll probably be happier in the end, and if you're married, you'll definitely be happier with the WAF in the end.
Yeah, that's it. The pirates. All out there downloading illgal music through P2P and not listening to the radio. You know, there should be a law. That's it, a LAW. A law to require the inclusion of AM and FM receiving in every portable audio player. And a special algorithm which prevents the playing of any song from memory that will be broadcast in say, the next 12 hours, or has been broadcast in the previous 12 hours. All tracks will require DRM that catalogs them. No catalog number, no play. If you want to listen to junior's recital, record it on an 8 track. Grandma want's to hear it? Mail her a copy of the tape.
Now, I hear you claim that you "own" your music and you can play it wherever and whenever you want. And I say bullshit. You've licensed that music. What? You own a CD? Don't think that your pooch-pounding, cd-ripping, format-shifting, "oh, it's fair use" means squat to the people who run this country. We're talking about the very survival of people who pay good money to get the right folks elected. Want it different? Fine - just get your own FCC license and run your own station. You can play whatever you want whenever you want, without running afoul of the law. It's a free country - your want it your way, go and pay for it. What's that? You don't have that kind of cash laying around. Well, let me remind you that the laws weren't bought and paid for by the poor.
So there it is - to prop up a business model that is no longer viable, we simply need a couple of laws. That'll fix those damned pirates.
On the contrary, you should pay more for rural roads, as the cost per driven mile is higher due to construction difficulty and the greater impact of environmental degradation over the life of the road. We could even match the driven roads to the most recent per-mile cost estimates for reconstruction and maintenance. Gosh, we could make this so complicated you would never be able to figure out what the most efficient route is, or whether your tax liability was calculated correctly. This should have all the politicians licking their chops (pork chops, that is)!